Otherwise Occupied

Yes, I've been a negligent blogger lately. Or rather, I've been neglecting this blog in particular while devoting a lot of time to Taste TO, the new group-blog that my wife and I are running.

Aside from running the technical side of things, I've been doing a lot of writing over there, including:

• reviews of Esplanade Bier Markt and The Rhino (the latter a slightly modified version of a review that was posted here a couple of months back)
• "Beer of the Week" features on C’est What Mild Brown Ale, Brooklyn Lager, Heritage Passion Brew and Denison’s Weissbier
• some thoughts on stromboli
• and various news & event round-ups

Taste TO will likely continue to be a bit of a time-suck as we try and get some momentum going, so my posts here will probably continue to be less frequent over the next couple of weeks, but things should get back to normal soon.

Five From Half Pints

Last fall, I got word of a new brewery starting up out in Winnipeg called Half Pints Brewing. Initially, I didn't pay much attention to the announcement. I mean, it's always good to hear about a new micro starting up, especially in Canada. But since the odds of ever seeing Half Pints beers available in Ontario are next to none, my reaction was basically "oh, that's nice, maybe I'll try some of their stuff if I ever make it out to Winnipeg".

But then I learned that the president and brewmaster of Half Pints was David Rudge, a man who is semi-legendary amongst Canadian craft brew fans. Mind you, most of us had never actually tried any of his beers, but we'd heard fantastic things about the stuff he did at Bushwakker Brewpub in Regina, Saskatchewan from those who were lucky enough to visit the pub. So I knew that I needed to get my hands on some bottles of his Half Pints offerings.

Luckily, I was able to find someone from Winnipeg on RateBeer who was willing to do a trade, and back in December, I got a nice big box packed with a bomber each of five Half Pints beers along with a few other goodies. I've made a point of sharing them at several different tastings and get-togethers over the last couple of months, and now that I've finally tried 'em all, here's what I thought:

Bulldog Amber Ale
Orange-amber colour with a small white head. The aroma holds some very nice woody hops, well balanced by some slightly grainy malt. Body is a bit light, but OK for the style. Once in the mouth, it proves to be a nice, simple, clean, balanced UK style ale with a well-hopped finish. A fantastic session ale - if the LCBO carried this (hint, hint!), it would be a regular in my fridge.

Little Scrapper IPA
Maybe all of the Double IPAs I've drunk have caused me to build up some hop resistance, 'cause I didn't find this nearly as hoppy as the description on the label promised. Oh, no doubt that there was a healthy amount in there - some great notes of orange rind and pine resin in both the aroma and flavour proved that - but I actually found it to be quite well balanced. Another one that I could drink a lot of if given the chance.

Oktoberfest Lager
I've generally found Oktoberfest beers to be pretty boring, but after having this, I think it's because most of the ones I've tried have just been mediocre beers, regardless of the style. It has a slightly hazy copper-amber colour with a medium head, and a quite malty aroma with sweet caramel and some interesting earthy/leafy notes. The flavour starts quite sweet, develops some bready notes in the middle, and finishes fairly dry with a hint of cocoa.

Stir Stick Stout
A coffee stout made with Ethiopian Yirgacheffe?!? Dude, I am SO there! Very dark brown colour with ruby hints and a couple of fingers of off-white foam. Nice aroma - very roasty with a good hit of coffee, some light woodiness and a bit of chocolate. This body is thin, which is the beer’s one main weakness. Thankfully, the flavour makes up for it - good roasted malt and coffee notes off the top, sweet in the middle, and a well bittered finish. With a bit more body, this would be a fantastic stout. As it stands, it’s just a very good one.

Sweet Nikki Brown
Brown ales are a much maligned style - somewhat deservedly, as most of them are boring as hell. But when they're done well, they're a real treat. This particular example pours a dark ruby-brown with a good sized mocha head. The aroma is great, with lots of sweet roasted malt, cereal (specifically, Honeycomb cereal), and herbal hops, all well-balanced. The flavour is roasty and nutty off the top, with a slightly watery middle, but a nice bitterness in the finish that makes up for it.

So, a big thumbs up on this first quintet from Half Pints. I have a standing order in with my new trading buddy for any of David's future releases, and there are already four more waiting to be shipped - a winter seasonal Burly Wine, and the "Holy Trinity" series of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit - plus a couple more planned for the next few months. I expect you'll see another Half Pints post here soon enough.

Sick in Seattle 2: The Nausea Continues

As previously reported, I was struck down by a bug of some sort during my trip to Seattle. It started on Saturday morning, when I woke up with what I thought was a mild hangover from my Friday night outing. It seemed unlikely since I really didn't have that much to drink, but combined with a bit of jet lag, it was a possibility.

After some ibuprofen, coffee and a light breakfast, things weren't getting any better, so I decided to get out to see if some air would help. It was grey, damp and cool outside, but the fresh air still helped somewhat, so I hopped on a bus downtown to do some exploring.

My destination was Pike Place Market, a massive complex of food stalls, shops and restaurants that makes Toronto's St. Lawrence Market look like a corner store in comparison. I spent more than 2 hours wandering around, and I'm sure that I didn't see everything. I saw them throw some fish around at the Pike Place Fish Market, took a good whiff at Beecher's Handmade Cheese, had a tasty snack at Piroshky Piroshky, and avoided the bad hippy buskers in front of the original Starbucks.

Feeling a bit better after my morning constitutional, I decided that I was up for lunch at The Pike Pub & Brewery, a spacious brewpub located a block or so from the Market. I ordered up a sampler flight of a half-dozen beers, and found them all to be pretty solid examples of their respective styles. Well, except for the Weisse - it was kinda bland. But I particularly liked the XXXXX Stout, which had a lot of great coffee and chicory character, and hints of molasses and smoke.

Unfortunately, halfway through my lunch, things started rumbling around again, and I decided that it might be a good idea to head back to my hotel room and take a bit of a break before heading uptown to check out a couple more beer spots. But when things didn't get any better in the gastro-intestinal department, plans for further outings were scrapped in favour of - well, just laying around feeling generally shitty, really.

So, that was my trip to Seattle. Half great, half lousy. Meh.

Bryson Blogs

Lots of pro beer/drink writers have been blogging for a while - my regular reads include blogs from the likes of Rick Lyke, Stan Hieronymus, Jay Brooks, Stephen Beaumont and, uh, Stephen Beaumont.

One hold-out, however, has been Lew Bryson. I've always enjoyed his articles in Ale Street News and elsewhere, and while I would occasionally remember to check out his website, I was hoping that he'd join the blogging fray and do some more immediate, easy-to-access writing.

Well, he's finally done so. His new blog, Seen Through a Glass, was launched just over a week ago, and he's hit the ground running with 20 posts in 10 days. And he's also come up with a unique theme many of his posts: The Session Beer Project, which will see him sharing his thoughts on the lighter, balanced brews that are often ignored by beer geeks in favour of uber-hoppy Double IPAs, massive Imperial Stouts, and other "extreme" beers. It's a great idea, I think - I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads.

Oh, yeah - in case you're wondering, I remained sick for the rest of my stay in Seattle, and didn't fully recover until a couple of days after I got home. But as mentioned previously, I did make it out for a few hours on Saturday morning, and I've got a bit to write about that when I can find a few spare minutes. This weekend, hopefully.

Sick in Seattle

My body often doesn't take well to travelling, especially when it involves different time zones. Adapting to a different eating and sleeping cycle, even when it's only 2 or 3 hours difference, does a bit of a number on me, with the main symptom being, uh, "gastro-intestinal distress" (to put it politely). Normally, popping a few Pepto tablets keeps things in check, but this time it seems to be hitting me even harder than usual, and has expanded to include headaches and a generally feeling of crappiness.

As a result, I've not been enjoying my visit to Seattle as much as I would have liked. I've only visited a handful of places that I'd planned on seeing, and while it's only afternoon on Saturday, I'm honestly considering just staying in my hotel room for the rest of the day & evening. The idea of drinking more beer is actually somewhat unappealing. This is not good.

Still - I have managed to get a bit of exploring in, starting with last night when I headed out to Capitol Hill neighbourhood. This area is Seattle's version of Greenwich Village or Queen Street West, as well as the heart of the city's gay community, so needless to say there are lots of funky shops, trendy restaurants, espresso bars, high-end grocery stores and the like.

My first stop in the 'hood was the Elysian Brewpub (1221 E Pike St.), a large and inviting place that seems to be popular with the slightly aging hipster set. Several tables were taken by post-grunge couples in their mid-30s who had brought along their little Kurts & Courtneys in training. One kid in particular caught my eye - he couldn't have been more than 5 or 6, and he was dressed in faded jeans, a red plaid shirt, and had a mop of dirty blonde hair. Very cute, in an odd sort of way.

Anyway, my well-inked waitress was chipper and friendly, and the beer and food were both quite good. My dinner was grilled mahi-mahi tacos - the fish was a bit overdone, but still tasty. And on the beer side, I did a sampler flight of five of their house beers, with the Hydra Hefeweizen and Perseus Porter being my faves, and followed that up with a glass of their Spirit Fire IPA, which was a hop bomb but in a very good way.

Leaving Elysian, I walked a couple of blocks over to Broadway, which looked to be the main drag in the area. When I got the corner of Pike & Broadway, I saw a Bartell Drugs, and recalled that Sheryl had found out from a friend that they carried Idaho Spuds, a local candy bar that we had read about in Steve Almond's Candyfreak and wanted to try. I went in and found not only Spuds, and Sheryl's beloved Payday bars, but about a dozen other candy bars that we'd never tried. I called Sheryl to list them off, and she replied with "one of those, and two of those, and...". The somewhat embarrassing result is pictured to the right.

Next up was The Stumbling Monk (1635 E. Olive Way). Located a couple of blocks off of Broadway, this a serious blink-and-you'll-miss-it place. I ended up walking several blocks past the turn on Broadway, and then had to keep my eyes open for it once I back-tracked and found the right street. It has no sign and heavily frosted windows, so unless you know it's there, odds are you won't find it - but according to the friendly barman, that suits them fine. They have a steady local clientele who dig the laidback neighbourhood vibe of the place, as well as the impeccable beer list. After all, where else would you find a corner tavern with Duchesse De Bourgogne, Chimay White and Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux on tap, alongside some solid local micros? And I'm sure the the large, Belgian-heavy bottle list probably helps, as well as the remarkably reasonable prices. I spent an enjoyable couple of hours at the bar, and put back some of the aforementioned Duchesse along with an Imperial Stout and a Silk Lady Belgian-Style Ale from Dick's Brewing of Centralia, Washington. All nice stuff.

And then I woke up this morning with what I originally thought to be a hangover, but what has proven to be something more nefarious. I managed to get out for a couple of hours at least, and I'm still not sure about whether or not I'll head back out this evening. Whatever happens, watch this space for a summary in the next day or two. Bleh.

Seattle - Day 1

I'm in Seattle, and my hotel room has a kitchen. I find this very odd.

After many hours on a very large plane, and a stop-over in Vancouver, and less than an hour on a very small plane, I got in around 7 PM local time. My schedule didn't really allow me to have a proper dinner, so after checking in at the hotel, I went out with the rest of the folks who are in from Toronto for this weekend's conference to have what felt like a midnight snack to my still-thinks-I'm-in-the-Eastern-time-zone body.

Dining options near the hotel are limited, so we ended up across the street at a horrendously overpriced seafood tourist-trap called Chandler's Crabhouse (which is, I shit you not, next door to a place called Joey's). Thankfully, I wasn't very hungry, so I didn't get tempted by any of the extravagant main courses. I went with the Tarantula Roll appetizer and a bowl of Seafood Chowder, both of which were tasty enough. And I was also glad to find some decent beers on tap - I had pints of Pyramid Hefeweizen and Alaskan Amber, and while neither of them were spectacular, they kept me happy.

Should sleep now. More later!

Like We Needed An Excuse To Drink More Stout!

Stan over at Appellation Beer has come up with a grand idea indeed:

Food bloggers have their own cooking day once a month. Wine bloggers have Wine Blogging Wedesday.

It seems that beer bloggers around the world should have something similar. So let’s start one, an event that will occur on the first Friday of every month. It doesn’t have to have a name (yet) or a logo (like wine), just participants who want to have a little fun and don’t mind learning a little along the way.

On Friday, March 2nd, the first instalment of this yet-to-be-named beer blog meme will take place, and the inaugural theme will be "Not Your Father's Irish Stout". Since my father drinks Labatt Blue, pretty much any stout would do in my case, but the rules specify that we have to stay away from the Big Three: Guinness, Murphy’s or Beamish. Otherwise, anything goes.

So check back here (and here, and here, and here, and probably here, and lots of these places) in just over a month to see what we all end up drinking. Maybe I can even convince my wife to get in on the action - she likes the black stuff even more than I do.

Oh, yeah - I should mention that I'm off to Seattle tomorrow for a meeting on Friday, and I plan to indulge in beer & food geekery on Friday night and Saturday. And of course, since I'm from the land of the CN Tower, I will point at their puny Space Needle and laugh. Ha!

Five O'Hanlon's Ales

Earlier this month, Ontario beer drinkers got the very good news that the latest vintage of the renowned Thomas Hardy's Ale was now available for private ordering in our province thanks to import agency Roland + Russell. Not much was known about these folks in the beer community as they previously specialized in importing wine, spirits and fine food, but their great prices and excellent customer service won them a lot of fans very quickly.

Almost lost in the Hardy's hype, however, was the fact that R+R is also carrying other beers from O'Hanlon's, the brewery that revived the Thomas Hardy's brand in 2003, a couple of years after the original brewer, Eldridge Pope, shut down their brewing operations to concentrate on their pub business. When I contacted R+R to place an order for some of the Hardy's, they replied with info on the other O'Hanlon's beers which I posted to The Bar Towel, and after exchanging a couple of more emails chatting about the beer business, they were kind enough to offer me sample bottles of the four O'Hanlon's ales that they will be carrying year round, as well as a Christmas seasonal bitter.

One interesting thing about these beers is that they are bottle-conditioned, which is rare amongst the UK ales that we usually see in Ontario. When it comes to bottle-conditioned brews, I'll often give the yeasties a swirl and pour them along with the beer, but with four of these five beers, I decided to pour slowly and leave as much of the sediment in the bottle as possible. (The exception: the wheat beer, which is a style that I prefer unfiltered.) The way I figure it, these beers are attempts to replicate cask ale in a bottle, and cask ale is always best when the publican has allowed the yeast to properly settle so the pints can be pulled as clear as possible. But if you prefer your ale with the little chunky bits, knock yourself out.

So - here's what I thought of 'em:

Yellowhammer Premium Golden Ale
Light golden colour, and a nice aroma - a bit minerally with pleasant Cascade hop notes. Light, refreshing flavour of mellow malt, with some sweet fruitiness and an expertly hopped finish with a fresh, citric character. A pretty simple beer, but quite an enjoyable one.

Royal Oak Traditional Bitter
This is another former Eldridge Pope beer that O'Hanlon's took on. It pours a deep amber-orange with a small white head that sticks around to the end of the glass. Great aroma right from the get-go - earthy, almost funky malts, some caramel, a bit of alcohol, and pungent hops. Soft, creamy mouthfeel. Lovely flavour of sweet and woody malt, a hint of honey and peach in the middle, and a well-hopped finish with notes of citrus and wood. Really nice!

Double Champion Wheat Beer
Initial slow half-glass pour is clear, bright yellow-gold with a good sized white head. The aroma, body and flavour are all sharp, with nice citrus and herbal notes, somewhat tart and quite dry in the finish. Second pour brings the yeast, turning the body cloudy and adding some dustiness to the aroma and flavour. The few UK wheat beers I’ve had before this haven’t done much for me, but I enjoyed this one.

Goodwill Christmas Bitter
Garnet colour with a wispy tan head. Nice aroma of sweet caramel, malt and orange candy. Same soft mouthfeel as the rest of the beers. Pleasant flavour, fairly sweet with mild spice notes, and a moderately dry finish with a faint medicinal tinge. I liked it, but I expected a bit more from an Xmas ale.

Original Port Stout
This interesting concoction is modelled after an old Irish tradition of starting the morning after the night before with a stout laced with a splash of Port. It has a nice, dark ruby-brown colour with a good sized light tan head. Interesting aroma that's fairly malty/roasty with notes of coffee and smoke, and a tinge of sour fruit. The body is on the thin side - decent for an ale, but light for a stout. Flavour follows on the aroma, with sweet roasty notes of the top, some mild smoke and coffee, and a dry, sourish finish. Pretty neat little beer.

In general, I was impressed by the O'Hanlon's line-up. It's too bad that attempts to get some of them into the LCBO have been rejected so far, but at least they can be found in some of Toronto's better drinking establishments, along with the Thomas Hardy's Ale.

And to prove that they're serious about this beer thing, Roland + Russell announced this week that they are now carrying a half-dozen beers and a a couple of unique beer-based distilled spirits from Austria's Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg, including the one-time strongest beer in the world, the 14% abv doppelbock Samichlaus. Between this and recent cold and snowy weather, it's like Christmas came to Ontario a month late!

Sleep is Overrated...

It seems that running this blog, serving as news editor at The Bar Towel, contributing to Gremolata, and - oh, yeah - working at a full-time job just wasn't enough for me. So, my wife and I have launched Taste T.O., a website & group blog dedicated to covering Toronto's food and drink scene.

Actually, we haven't "officially" launched it yet. That will happen in February, once our other contributors have had a chance to get some stuff written and posted. But it's up now for a sneak peek.

One of my regular contributions to the site will be a Beer of the Week column, where I write a review/profile of a different locally-available beer each week. The first instalment is up today, and features my thoughts on Toronto's very own Steam Whistle Pilsner.

Beer: Snob Drink or Slob Drink?

This past weekend, while taking a break from working on the Really Cool Project that my wife and I will soon be launching, I spent an hour or two catching up on a week's worth of blog reading, and I was somewhat amused by all of the attention that was being given to a fluff piece that ran in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review last Wednesday. Entitled "Beer snobs forget the true meaning of beer", the article sees columnist Mike Seate lamenting the influx of bars catering to people who actually want some choice and flavour when it comes to their beer.

If you read the piece (go ahead, it's short), you'll see that Mr. Seate has two big problems with these sort of places:

1. The beer is too expensive; and
2. The people who choose to drink the type of beer served in these places don't know what beer is really supposed to be about.

His argument is summed up by the penultimate paragraph:

Is it just me, or has somebody forgotten that beer is supposed to be a workingman's drink, as free from pretensions and airs as a kielbasa smothered in sauerkraut?

As you might expect, this caused quite a flurry of commentary on the beer boards and blogs that us hoity-toity non-workingmen like to frequent. Lengthy threads sprang up on RateBeer and Beer Advocate, and most notable (and opinionated) beer-bloggers chimed in with their thoughts, including Alan at A Good Beer Blog, Stan at Appellation Beer, and Jay at Brookston Beer Bulletin.

Perhaps the best counter-argument came from Stephen Beaumont, who asks "Who defines what a workingman should drink?", and sums things up nicely in these two paragraphs:

What does bother me [...] is the idea that North American “workingmen,” as popularly defined by people such as Mr. Seate, are expected, no, required to make do with ordinary, often boring food and drink, as if the past two or three decades of gastronomic evolution have never occurred. If your collar is blue, the theory goes, you are expected to make do with a pint of pale, ice-cold lager and an order of previously frozen chicken wings and fries, and be happy for the privilege.

Now, contrast this with what I see in continental Europe, where local people of all stripes and economic classes, and both genders, tend to eat local food and drink local wines and beers. In areas like rural Wallonia in Belgium, the Provençal countryside and the hills of Tuscany, one needn’t worry about being derided for preferring the wares of the small winery or brewery down the street, or noshing on some artisanally-produced cheese or cured meat. Quite the opposite, in fact; a person might be thought too big for their boots if they went with the national, mass marketed brand.

In the aftermath of all this activity, Mr. Seate made a couple of posts to his own blog where he quoted some of the irate emails that he received from beer aficionados who took offence to his article. As expected, he doesn't take them very seriously, expressing shock that there people out here who "spend their off hours visiting Web forums where they discuss beer, worship beer, analyze brewing techniques and generally turn something as simple and refreshing as beer into a Star Trek convention nerd-fest".

Hey! I resemble that remark!

But am I upset or angry by the column? No, not really. I'm well aware that my habit of sniffing, swishing and scribbling while enjoying my beer makes me one of those "weird beer enthusiasts" that Mr. Seate refers to in one of his blog posts. I've always had mildly obsessive tendencies and a habit of collecting and cataloguing things, and I've moved from being a comic geek to a music geek to a beer geek. Most people don't get it, and I'm fine with that.

It's unfortunate, though, that so many people are ignorant of - or indifferent towards - the fact that while 90% of the beer produced in the world today may be bland, industrially-produced pale lagers, the remaining 10% consists of brews of a variety and complexity that rival the best wines and spirits. Or that so many people are content to treat beer as nothing more than a commercial product, like "cornflakes or, say, Hostess cupcakes", to use Mr. Seate's words. But if they're happy too look at beer as just another item on their grocery list, and don't have the time or interest in exploring the beer world beyond Blue, Bud or Boddingtons, then who am I to argue?

Anyway - just to add a little twist of irony to this whole episode, I thought I would mention that I spent a night in Pittsburgh about 15 years ago, a time when, according to Mr. Seate:

[...] few local bars served anything more esoteric than, say, Old Frothingslosh, and the concept of drinking a Guinness stout from a tap just like Europeans do was something of a beer-lover's revelation.

Now, while I tended to drink local microbrews at the time, I was far from being the raving beer-rating fanatic that I am today, so I wasn't on doing any beer hunting. I was just on a the road for a few days to see a couple of musician friends playing shows in some Midwestern towns, and their show in Pittsburgh happened to be at a place called the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern. It was a comfortable college-friendly place with a banner out front proclaiming that they served the "Best Perogies in Pittsburgh".

And it also had dozens of different beers from all over the world. So many of them that they ran out of room behind the bar and put the overflow on the customer's side of the bar, in fridges with lights that flashed when they were opened so the staff could make sure no-one absconded with the goods without paying. I don't remember now what I drank that night - maybe something from Russia? - but it was definitely something I'd never had before. And I liked it.

Isn't it funny that one of the milestones in my journey towards full-fledged beer geekdom happened right in Mr. Seate's backyard?